RECIPE DETAILS
DIY Root Beer Recipe
- Prep 2 hrs 30 mins
- Cook 15 mins
- Active 40 mins
- Fermentation Time 60 hrs
- Total 62 hrs 45 mins
- Serves 16 servings
- Makes 1 gallon
Homemade root beer is earthy, bold, and sweet all at the same time.
Ingredients
- 1 gallon filtered water, divided
- 1 tablespoon sarsaparilla root bark (see notes)
- 1 tablespoon sassafras root bark (see notes)
- 1 tablespoon birch bark (see notes)
- 4 sprigs chocolate mint (see notes)
- 3 star anise pods
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed ginger
- 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1/8 teaspoon ale yeast
Directions
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Combine 2 quarts water, sassafras, sarsaparilla, birch, mint, star anise, ginger, and vanilla in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Remove pot from heat, cover, and let steep for 2 hours.
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Strain liquid through a fine-mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth into a large pot. Add remaining 2 quarts water along with brown sugar and molasses. Stir until mixture is integrated, then cover.
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Let cool to 75°F (24°C), then stir in yeast and let it sit for 15 minutes. Fill plastic bottles with mixture, leaving 2 inches of space at top. Screw on caps. Keep bottles at room temperature for 36 hours, then open a bottle slowly and carefully to see if it is carbonated enough. If it is, then go on to step 4. If not, reseal the bottle and let rest for another 12 to 24 hours until desired carbonation is reached.
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Place bottles in the refrigerator for 2 days before drinking. You can store refrigerated root beer for about 1 month.
I wish there weren’t so many popup ads in that website. Trying to scroll down to the ingredient list is troublesome.
Pihole is your friend. If you can’t run one at home for any reason, it costs about $5-$7 a month on some VPS hosts like Digital Ocean. Set it up with Wireguard and you have its capabilities everywhere you go.
Someone: “there are too many stupid ads on the website”
Pjhenry1216: “oh, really? You should self-host your own DNS server and/or spend money on hosting and rent a server”That’s like advising someone who had trouble getting newly bought furniture into their house sometimes to buy a crane.
I’m sorry your life makes two cups of coffee a month out of your reach or that you can’t afford $15 one time payment for a raspberry pi. After graduating high school and you get a job instead of an allowance, you’ll see those are very small costs.
Dude! I was messing with you! The cost is indeed minimal, yet the effort an knowledge to set something like this up to work flawlessly are not trivial for non techies for a thing that is easily achieved by uBlock Origin.
If on phone, use Firefox and switch the website into reader mode. It removes all bloat and customization of websites so all you see is the photos and text. Works great for me.
Thank you, yeah I’m still using Chrome. I’m waiting on my new phone to change everything over.
Direct link to printable (non-fluff) version: https://www.seriouseats.com/diy-root-beer-how-to-brew-your-own-root-beer-recipe?print
The Hero we need right here 🙏
I hope to some day be described as “earthy, bold, and sweet all at the same time”.
I most likely won’t ever spend time making my own root beet, I massively appreciate your post and the straight forward nature of the information! This is the type of stuff that makes me enjoy lemmy.
So interesting that it’s ale yeast causing the carbonation. Makes sense given the history, but I somehow assumed we always just used syrup and carbonated water
Reading the comments seems like the consensus was it lacked flavor. How did yours turn out?
I wish the recipe would be straight up written without having to visit the website
I’m seeing the full recipe. Maybe it’s the way you are browsing? I see it on connect.
well now in the comments it’s there.
